Category: Emotional Benefits of Crafting

While the quantity of research on how arts, crafts, and creative activities affect the brain in a healing capacity is limited, there is no doubt that the underpinnings of therapy are present. People who use crafting to help quell their anxiety, stress, depression, or even physical pain are essentially repairing the neural pathways in their brains, which also helps slow down age-related illness.

Focused Energies
When people partake in their favorite mental activities, whether that be puzzle-solving or creative expression, they are using their brains differently than in normal day-to-day tasks. They aren’t necessarily thinking less, they are thinking more effortlessly. The brain goes into a sort of trance when it is doing an activity that the person actually enjoys and embraces.

The carrot at the end of the stick is not just survival or the end of work, it is the entirety of the activity itself that is the carrot, which puts the brain into a state of calm, similar to meditation.

Challenging, but not Stressful
What sets arts and crafts apart from other activities that also engage the brain is that you aren’t racing against a clock, measuring your performance, or following rigid instructions. These constructs limit the way the brain makes new connections in the brain. When a person is engaging in a creative activity, they are embracing any challenges in that space with enthusiasm and are able to naturally focus their energy into that moment. This is why it is so easy for time to fly when you are caught up in your artwork.

This is what all teachers and life coaches like to see in people who are dealing with depression, uncertainty, and who normally spend all their time working or thinking about work, for example. A great hobby is something that gives you purpose, passion, and energy. These feelings aren’t imaginary, they are products of the brain’s chemical reactions and neural activity.

Natural Medication
While scientists may not have a complete understanding of how crafting heals and repairs our bodies, they can observe how it changes the levels of the chemicals released by the brain. The most prominent increase in chemical activity is, of course, dopamine. This is your “feel good” drug that is associated with many different stimuli: sex, achievements, eating, and compliments, to name a few. When we are engaged in a craft that we are proud of, having fun with, and feel free to express ourselves with, our brains are constantly rewarding with the steady release of dopamine.

This release of dopamine is often sought through different addictions, but the big difference between an addiction of your art and an addiction to gambling, drugs, or sex is that you are the sole supplier of the necessary devices to trigger that release of dopamine, you are the dealer, which means no plateauing, cold streaks, or cut-offs of what makes you feel good.

Reversing and Preventing Aging
Ultimately, doing what brings you joy and purpose in life, without conditions or restrictions, is what scientists and health experts would call the Fountain of Youth. Crafting activities engage the brain in a way that actively works against degenerative diseases, like dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is estimated that over 35 million people suffer from some form of dementia, and that number is only going to increase. While modern medicine is making great strides, we must not overlook the deceptively simple, but effective means of alternative healing, which some consider it as a the healing of the mind, body, and soul.

Connie Limon, Bead Jewelry Artisan and Writer

Welcome to my blog!

I am a retired secretary from state of Indiana government offices, mother of one daughter, grandmother to two grandsons and first born child to Korean War Veteran, Ralph Stidham

Melissa Dawn Limon, My Angel as a Newborn

Connie and Juan Limon (father of Melissa) January 1973

Ralph Stidham, my father

My Dearest Father

Dad was 16 years old when he enlisted in the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Can you imagine being 16 years old and shipped from place to place for training, then shipped overseas to Korea to fight in one of the most violent wars our world has ever known? He was trained on tanks and spent 13 months on the front lines in Korea as a tanker. He was there in the tanks on the front lines when they signed the peace treaty, or the stop fighting treaty. The tanks was one reason the U.S. overcame so much of the adversities in Korea. Dad was in Korea there the last part of the war. The earlier years of that war he was being trained first one place, then another in the U.S. In this picture he was between the ages of 16 and 18 as those were the years he spent in the Army. I was born in 1956. I do remember about Korea from him in those years. When I watch the You Tube videos of that war, it brings back the memories. I remember wondering what that word, "Korea" meant.